Something that I've noticed that increasingly frustrates me about Republican or possibly conservative thinking is that they consistently view problems at the surface instead of getting deep down to the root of a problem, and so they implement policy to pull the weed out but not kill the root. I've been seeing this with multiple issues:

Abortion: Too many abortions are happening so you have to kill the places that cause abortions, get rid of planned parent hoods and women will stop having abortions right? Instead of getting deep down to the reason why women have abortions to begin with. Increased poverty, teenage pregnancies, single mothers. Getting rid of planned parent hoods won't make these problems go away which instead will lead to more poverty, abandoned children etc.

Inner city crime rates/Gang Violence: Martial law and order increased police force will stop gangs right? Instead of going deep down to figure out why many minorities are joining gangs to begin with or finding out why gangs are fighting one another. Decades of mistrust in the system, mistrust in police officers, POVERTY, increased incarceration of young black men, bad education systems all leading to lack of family unit which leads young men and women to seek these things out in unhealthy ways.

Drug use: Make drugs illegal and implement just say no programs and people *cough* minorities *cough* will stop using drugs right? Instead of figuring out why people would take drugs to begin with. Addictive personalities, lack of education, POVERTY, Making things illegal tends to make people go into hiding to use. Crack or heroin dens, drugs manufactured in unsafe unclean environments.

Teenage Pregnancy: Teach the little boys and little girls not to have sex and they won't have sex right? Instead of figuring out why girls are getting pregnant at a young age. Lack of education, lack of contraceptives and contraceptive education, lack of knowledge of how their own bodies function.

Gun Violence: More guns and a militarized police will make more people feel safer from the people that kill people with guns right? Instead of examining why people are shooting up other people in the first place, making mental health more easily accessible, studying gun violence.

Terrorism: Going to war with Terrorist will show them that we mean business and won't be terrorized right? Instead of figuring out what breeds terrorists in the first place, nation building where we're not wanted, getting involved in foreign affairs that had nothing to do with us in the first place. POVERTY The fact that war with terrorism just creates more terrorism.

Police Brutality: If black people weren't so prone to violence the police wouldn't have to kill them in the first place, why are they burning down buildings can't they protest peacefully, stop protesting and get a job, now is not the time to protest! Instead of years of systemic racism, forced POVERTY poor education, a mistrust for the police has lead to these circumstances.

I'm sure there are others but I'm noticing a trend of Political Occam's razor with the Republican party. Out of boredom I was listening to the 1992 US presidential debates. Funnily enough they were arguing about the same bullshit were arguing about now. When the question about gang violence came up Dan Quayle said that gang violence occurred because of a lack of a father figure in the home, and went on to blame black people for this reason and saying that men need to get out of these gangs and be at home for their children. Instead of the reasons that these problems were occuring in the first place.A lot of these issues when you come down to it find its roots in Poverty and lack of education. Is it just a Republican's mind state to be more reactionary and to just throw something at a problem and saying there that solves it? To work on their gut feelings instead of actually seeing what is causing the issue?Am I the only one that's noticing this? How do we change this?

At risk of sounding a tad dramatic here, Republicans (at least more so than Democrats) are the puppets of the rich. They'll never outright say it in any official capacity, but their aim isn't to help people in the first place, it's to exploit them as efficiently as possible. Keeping the majority of people poor, ignorant and fighting amongst themselves isn't the unfortunate result of poorly thought out solutions, it's exactly what they're trying to do in the first place. They have to pretend otherwise to sell it to the voters, but they know full well what they're doing.

Getting the middle class to blame the poor for why they can't become rich is the oldest trick of the elites, and it lets them run out the back door with all the money while everyone else is distracted.

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Quote from: Jordan Duram

It doesn't concern you, Sister, that kind of absolutist view of the universe? Right and wrong determined solely by a single all-knowing, all powerful being whose judgment cannot be questioned and in whose name the most horrendous acts can be sanctioned without appeal?

... but their aim isn't to help people in the first place, it's to exploit them as efficiently as possible. ...

You lost me a second there, Art. Who is it that is (not supposed to be but really is) looking out for the poor and middle class? Because from where I'm sitting (Baltimore, MD) the democrats sure aren't wasting money on lubrication for the shaft they're giving the poor and middle class.

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The difference between 0 and 1 is infinite. The difference between 1 and a million is a matter of degree. - Zack Johnson

Quote from: davedan board=pg thread=6573 post=218058 time=1286247542

I'll stop eating beef lamb and pork the same day they start letting me eat vegetarians.

... but their aim isn't to help people in the first place, it's to exploit them as efficiently as possible. ...

You lost me a second there, Art. Who is it that is (not supposed to be but really is) looking out for the poor and middle class? Because from where I'm sitting (Baltimore, MD) the democrats sure aren't wasting money on lubrication for the shaft they're giving the poor and middle class.

The Democrats (most of them, anyway, and not quite to the extent of the Republicans) are bought and paid for by the rich, just like the Republicans.

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Quote from: Jordan Duram

It doesn't concern you, Sister, that kind of absolutist view of the universe? Right and wrong determined solely by a single all-knowing, all powerful being whose judgment cannot be questioned and in whose name the most horrendous acts can be sanctioned without appeal?

... but their aim isn't to help people in the first place, it's to exploit them as efficiently as possible. ...

You lost me a second there, Art. Who is it that is (not supposed to be but really is) looking out for the poor and middle class? Because from where I'm sitting (Baltimore, MD) the democrats sure aren't wasting money on lubrication for the shaft they're giving the poor and middle class.

No one, I imagine. All I said was that the Republicans are only looking out for the wealthy. I never said they were the only ones.

@ Art My big counter to that would be global warming. It's in no-one's interest to destroy the planet, yet whether or not carbon traps heat in the atmosphere is now as partisan an issue as abortion.

My thoughts, 1) I think this has to do with the intellectual bubble republicans have put themselves in. The lay republican voter has only been getting information from FOX news for the last 20 years, and the leaders of the party have been living in a closed bubble for at least as long, resulting in an echo chamber where whatever oversimplified answer is bouncing around is never questioned. I remember Lindsey Graham said after he wrote that godawful healthcare bill that he didn't know anything about healthcare when he wrote it, he just assumed the other republicans new what they were talking about, and he seemed shocked to learn after the bill failed that no, they didn't.

2) To be fair the repubs, I'm not sure the gap between them and liberals is all that big. Liberals are better, but it can be a difference of degree not kind.

Plus when it comes to root causes, well, there are a lot of roots down there and we don't really know which are the important ones and which aren't. Take violence and poverty for example. On the one hand poverty is strongly connected with violence, poor people commit more violence then rich people, poor places have more violence then richer places etc. But on the other hand the ups and downs of the economy and the violent crime rate can have surprisingly little to do with each other: Homicide rates in the US rose during the roaring 20s, fell during the great depression, shot up in the prosperous 60s and stayed high until suddenly collapsing in the early 90s and have been at record lows ever since, completely unaffected by the great recession. And if poverty is the big root cause of violent crime, that's not what we'd expect. Truth is the only root cause of violent crime we can be sure of is age: young men commit the majority of violent crime, so when there is a demographic youth bulge violence and crime go up a lot. It's not the only root cause, but it's the only one we're sure of.

That doesn't make it okay for repubs to ignore poverty (since poverty is a worse problem then crime) but it's far from certain that fighting poverty would make the crime rate go down.

@ Art My big counter to that would be global warming. It's in no-one's interest to destroy the planet, yet whether or not carbon traps heat in the atmosphere is now as partisan an issue as abortion.

So you're saying oil and other fossil fuel producers aren't actively pushing for climate change denial, including political lobbying? I would agree that fucking up the environment is just as much against the interests of their executives and shareholders as everyone else (even more so, given how much more they stand to lose), yet it's a demonstrable fact that that's certainly not stopping them.

^What I meant is that they've have been lying in an echo chamber for so long that they believe all their own lies at this point. So the claim that they "know what they're doing" isn't in my opinion true. The guys running the republican party and the oil companies have convinced themselves that science is a communist plot to destroy capitalism.

That the lies are self serving helps them believe it, but they really do believe it.

I have to disagree with you there. The party leaders aren't stupid. They're a far cry from those ignorant enough to be duped into voting against their own interests. On the contrary, they're intelligent and well educated enough to make the former happen in the first place, often through some rather sophisticated psychological trickery. They know full well that they're peddling bullshit. If they honestly believed in what they were doing, then lobbyists would have no reason to spend such obscene amounts on them in the first place.

As I understand it, psychologists have found that the smarter someone is, the more likely they are to believe completely bullshit. Because the smarter you are, the better you are at rationalizing what you want to be true and coming up with reasons to reject contrary evidence. Just look at the mental gymnastics creationists, truthers, climate deniers, flat earthers etc perform when confronted with proof they are wrong. It takes a lot of brain power to pull those off and a stupid person can't do that.

My point is that, as with any complicated task, they need a very in depth understand of exactly what they're doing and why. Convincing huge numbers of people to actively fuck themselves over is not something you can do through sheer luck. Especially for a political party in a democracy, where you're effectively competing with many others for votes, some of whom aren't trying to actively screw their voters (quite as hard). If they honestly believed their own propaganda, they'd be utterly incompetent party leaders for largely the same reason that someone who believes cars run on magic would be a shit mechanic.

Not to mention, there's my other point that if they were acting out of pure idealism, lobbyists would have no reason to send millions of dollars their way in the first place.